


Long Jacket

by AlleiraDayne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Awkward Flirting, F/M, Fluff, Hunt-fic, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Assault, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, case-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26395369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlleiraDayne/pseuds/AlleiraDayne
Summary: Over the last few years, I’ve seen some of the craziest shit hunting with the Winchesters and their angel, Castiel. But this story right here? This isn’t about monsters. This isn’t about the battle between good and evil, heaven and hell. I understand all that.It’s people I don’t get. People are crazy. And we do crazy things when we’re in love.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester/You
Comments: 24
Kudos: 17
Collections: FicFacer$ 2020, The Destiel Self-Rec Favs Collection





	1. Sweatpants

**Author's Note:**

> For Fic-Facer$ 2020, this seven-part series fills the winning bidder's request of "Destiel from the reader's perspective. And please allow Castiel to wear something different for once."

_ _

* * *

_ Bacon _ .

Just as the flame summoned the moth, bacon possessed the absurd power of dragging my exhausted ass out of bed.

I could sleep more. Sure. I know I needed it. But bacon. And eggs. And toast. And  _ coffee _ .

Christ, I forgot to eat dinner again.

A rush of cold Bunker air sent a shiver down my spine as I threw my bed sheets aside. Lethargy slowed every attempt to roll from the bed, but I stood and rubbed the sleep from my eyes after the third try. By the time I tossed on a robe and slippers, other breakfast scents wafted to my room and filled my nose. The irresistible urge to satiate my hunger ushered me in a shambling shuffle down the hallway and over the kitchen door threshold.

“Morning,” Dean greeted. He stood before the range in his robe and slippers, and a flowery apron draped over his front. In the skillet sizzled the bacon that had awoken me, and Dean flipped it with his spatula. Over his shoulder, he glanced at me once more and asked, “Sleep any better?”

I managed a grunt as I pointed to the large pot of coffee and crossed the kitchen. The unforgiving bench of the table caught me as I slumped upon it. “I guess.” Not true. But what was I going to say? That my eyes burned, and my joints ached? Not a chance. Preaching to the choir.

“Don’t look like it,” Dean started. After a moment of settling the stove, he turned for the table bearing one plate piled high with bacon and the second plate with eggs and toast. “Looks like you didn’t really sleep at all.”

I wasn’t about to argue with him over it. But I hardly had the energy to complain either. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” I said as I poured a large cup of coffee and feigned a smile. “What’s on the docket for today?”

His flat stare humored me. “Nothing. Call could come in, but you need rest, Y/N.”

A scalding piece of bacon scalded my tongue. “Shit.” Not one to waste food, I chewed as quickly as I could and swallowed. “I’ll be fine. What’s—”

More shuffling of slippers sounded around the corner from the northern kitchen door, and I hesitated. Sam never left his room in his pajamas if it wasn’t an emergency. But why would an intruder shuffle so loudly? And in slippers?

Castiel trundled into the kitchen, wearing a black t-shirt and gray sweatpants. Slippered feet bore him to the kitchen table where he sat beside Dean as if it were any other morning, and he helped himself to a piece of bacon.

“Good morning, Y/N. Dean,” he said. “I smelled bacon and assumed it was you cooking breakfast.”

The pink that swelled in Dean’s cheeks caught me off guard. But as soon as it had shown, it vanished in the next second. “So… what, Cas? You just thought you’d join me? You don’t sleep. Why are you wearing pajamas? And you don’t eat.”

Castiel continued chewing through pieces of bacon. “Both statements are true. And yes, I thought I would join you. I did not think Y/N would be awake yet,” he explained, then paused as he turned to me with a noticeable double-take. “You really need natural rest, but in lieu of that,” he stated as his fingers touched my forehead.

I plunged into icy ocean water in a rush of divine grace that coursed through my body. A mere second lasted an eternity where I gasped for breath, and then the sensation vanished as quickly as it had come. Renewed strength and vigor cleared my clouded senses. I breathed deep, filling my lungs to bursting, and the dull ache in my bones faded away as if it had never been.

“Thanks… I think,” I stuttered.

“You will crash eventually,” Castiel explained. “Make sure you get at least ten hours of sleep tonight. Healing fatigue only works for so long.” When he turned back to Dean, he shook his head in confusion. “As I said before, yes, I was hoping that you would appreciate my company.”

A moment of hesitation flashed in his eyes before Dean shoved a handful of bacon into his mouth and said, “I uh… I do.” He stood suddenly, then crossed the kitchen for the refrigerator. “I jusf… don… underfan…” From the fridge, he withdrew a large container of orange juice. He swallowed the last of his food and asked, “What’s with the pajamas?”

“Are they… not appropriate breakfast attire?”

Before Dean could respond, Sam entered the kitchen clad in a predictable pair of jeans, flannel, and boots. “Wow. You’re all up early.” When he spotted Castiel, he froze. “What’s going on?”

Castiel’s eye roll rivaled one of Sam’s. “Is it really that strange?”

Dean returned to the table with a full glass, three empties, and a container of juice. “No, but the last time you wore anything besides your trench, you were human.”

“This is really happening, right? I’m not dreaming,” Sam asked.

When I turned over my shoulder, I found him looking at me. So I asked, “What’s the likelihood that we’re having the same dream? Let alone talking to each other in it?”

He considered the idea for a moment. A suspicious turn of his head narrowed his stare. “Did you hypnotize me?”

“I dunno. It’s possible,” I mused with a crooked smile. “Maybe you hypnotized me.”

Sam laughed his nervous laugh as he averted his gaze. “Call me when this is… over?” he asked, then turned on his heel and strode down the hallway without another word.

An awkward silence settled in the kitchen, interrupted only by the quiet din of breakfast. Each furtive look I chanced revealed one more layer of confusion; Dean stared, Castiel shifted in his seat, and then Dean focused solely on his plate while Castiel’s stare lingered on him. It wasn’t until he stood and excused himself from the table that he spoke. “I will go change.”

He barely made it a step before Dean grabbed his wrist. Seconds ticked by wherein I shoved too many bacon chunks into my mouth while I stared, wide-eyed. Dean hardly seemed to comprehend what he had just done. No one spoke, no one dared even to move. That long, unsure moment passed so agonizingly slow I thought it might never end. And then Dean snatched his hand back. The pink in his cheeks deepened, spreading to his collar and neck before turning crimson’s brilliant shade.

Castiel returned to his seat and continued to consume bacon. “This is acceptable, then?”

Dean’s knuckles blanched around the fork and knife as though he clung to a lifeline. His mouth opened to answer, but instead of his voice sounding, the phone in his pocket buzzed to life. The metal of silverware clattered to the table as he scrambled through his robes, then ripped his phone from his pocket.

“Agent Taylor…”

On the other end of the call, I heard a woman who identified herself as a detective. Beyond that, I could only detect the singsong pattern of her voice. Dean nodded, infrequently responding until the very end of the call. “Alright, ma’am, I’ll bring my team out for a few days, and we’ll take a look around. I can’t promise we’ll find anything, but we definitely agree it sounds like there may be some foul play here.”

When he hung up, Dean regarded me first. “You good to go for another day, at least? You can sleep in the car on the way. Eight hours to Salem, Missouri.”

After a bite of toast and a moment’s consideration, I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be good.”

“I assume you’re coming with, Cas,” Dean stated as he turned to him.

Castiel inclined his head towards Dean. “What else would I do?”

“That’s my… never mind. You keep eating, I’ll clean up before we head out,” Dean said as he stood. “I’ll catch Sam up, and it’ll be wheels up in thirty. Don’t forget to pack your FBI suits.”

And just like that, we were on another case. Or so I thought. It wouldn’t be until the next day that I would understand exactly what I had gotten myself into.


	2. Suits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taking to heart Dean's suggestion, I sleep most of the way to Missouri, but once again, Castiel leaves me questioning my sanity the next day.

I took Dean up on his offer and slept most of the drive. Dinner comprised a quick bite at a small roadside cafe about an hour and a half outside Salem. Despite the rest I had stolen on the way out, I dozed against Sam’s arm the moment we were back on the road after dinner. As the Impala lumbered over the driveway and into the motel’s parking lot, Castiel’s words from that morning jostled between my ears.  _ Rest _ .

The motel bed called out to me as I climbed from the car and rubbed my stinging eyes. Yellow light from the single lamp in the parking lot bathed the motel in a dusky golden glow. A blurry neon blue shimmered in the distance where a sign labeled “Vending Machines” pointed to the right. And the steady flare of the red “Vacancy” sign crackled high overhead, its cadence matching the slow, monotonous beat of my heart.

_ Ah. The Winchester Special. Perfect. _

I hardly remember the tiny lobby but for the giant freshwater fish mounted behind the counter. Then the door of our motel room stood before us, shining like a beacon in the darkness. Before I knew it, I had collapsed on my bed and sleep threatened. It wasn’t long before I succumbed to the exhaustion of which Castiel had warned me. But before I submitted to that profoundly dark, nothing, through the tiny parting of one eyelid, I spotted the first giant red flag of many that I would encounter that weekend.

Castiel sat at the tiny motel table, a book in his hands, and a duffel bag at his feet. Draped over the duffel bag lay a folded suit hanger, stretched near to bursting at the seams and bulging near the bottom in several lumpy spots.

Darkness won the battle against my confusion, and finally, I slept.

* * *

“Hey, sunshine. Coffee.”

Through one bleary eye, I spotted Dean hovering over me with a thermos. “Wakey, wakey.”

I mumbled my reply into my pillow.

“Come again?”

I flopped onto my back. “Only if there’s eggs and bac-y.”

Dean snorted a short laugh through his nose. “We’re about to get some food. Cas insisted you sleep in some, so we’re getting a late start.”

I searched for the time and found it on the bedside clock as it ticked over to quarter after nine. “How is this sleeping in?”

“Considering you fell asleep at eight o’clock last night,” Dean said as he swirled the thermos closer, “I figured thirteen hours of sleep would be plenty.”

A knot in my neck twinged as I threw the sheets from me. “Doesn’t feel like I slept that long.” Despite my need for coffee, I stalled as I reached for the thermos. A foggy memory rushed to the fore of my mind, too brief to remember clearly. “I think I had some weird dreams…”

With another derisive snort, Dean forced the mug into my hand. “You probably did. I don’t know if Cas does it on purpose or if it’s just a general side effect of angel healing, but you will dream some pretty crazy shit over the next couple nights.” He paused for a beat with a distant stare glazing his eyes. “ _ Really _ crazy shit.”

“There were so many shoes…”

“Okay, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said as he shoved an arm into his coat. “Sam and I are going to head out to get food. I’ll get you some eggs and bacon. Cas is… I don’t know what he’s doing, but he’s been in the bathroom for about half an hour. Can you check on him?”

I squinted at the bathroom door as I dug the heel of my palm into the other eye. “Sure.”

The door slammed shut after Dean, and I took my first sip of coffee. The perfectly hot, dark, and sweet nectar of the energy gods slid down my throat as I swallowed, only to choke me at the last second. That memory returned once more, but no longer a half-remembered dream; it was the moment just before sleep, clear as day, and it answered the riddles that were my actual dreams the previous night.

There, beside the bathroom door, sat Castiel’s mysterious duffel bag, much smaller than the previous night. And his bursting suit bag had vanished.

_ Red flag number two _ .

I rose from the end of the bed and cautiously approached the bathroom door. Through it, I heard nothing despite my ear pressed against the rough grain. “Cas? You okay?”

“Y/N? You.... you’re awake?”

Ominous as ever. “Yeah, Dean asked me to check on you. He just left to get breakfast with Sam.”

“Oh.”

When he said nothing else, I asked, “Are you alright? Dean said you’ve been in here for half an hour? What’s going on?”

If I had been remotely more coherent, I might have figured it out sooner. The duffel bag alone had tripped all sorts of warnings; it should have been obvious. But when the door opened and Castiel emerged from the bathroom, I choked on my coffee again.

A pale gray suit jacket, paired with a slim purple tie and matching pocket square, hugged his broad shoulders. Beneath the tie and jacket, he wore a crisp white button-up shirt, and his feet bore a pair of brown oxfords to complete the ensemble. As I openly ogled him, I noticed the scattered remnants of various suits and shoes and ties strewn about the bathroom behind him.

“Are you—”

“I’m fine,” I interrupted as I cleared my throat. “What are you wearing?”

Castiel frowned as he regarded himself. “Dean said to bring FBI suits with.”

From any other person, that statement would have made complete sense. But from Castiel? Numerous questions demanded answers, and yet I could not settle on a single one as they each battled for my attention. “I… it’s a nice suit.”

A relieved smile softened his worried stare. “Oh, good. I was worried it was too conspicuous, so I tried on the other suits. But I liked this one the most.”

I peaked over his shoulder once more, then asked, “How many did you try?”

“Four.”

Bewildered, I shook my head as I shuffled back to my bed. It was too early; I had not consumed nearly enough caffeine yet, and I desperately needed the bathroom. “I need to take a shower. Can you grab your stuff? I want to be ready before Dean and Sam get back.”

“Sure,” he replied as he returned to the bathroom to gather his things.

Another minute and I had the bathroom to myself. Within twenty, I had finished my hair when I heard the Impala pull up to the motel. Castiel sat at the foot of his bed, watching a daytime soap opera. Eager to see how things played out, I joined him. I skittered across the room, hopped onto the end of my bed, and waited. The door of the motel swung wide as Dean strode through and said, “I have returned with bacon and—”

Everything happened at once. Dean froze a step and a half inside the door where Sam barreled into him. The bag of food slipped from Dean’s grasp, and with all the instincts in my body, I lunged. Before it fell an inch, I caught the food and held it aloft with an impressed grin on my face. But nobody had seen my incredible feat of dexterity and agility. Nope. I might as well have been invisible.

Dean openly gaped at Castiel, who stood straight and tall despite his shorter stature. It almost seemed as if he had doubled down on his decision to wear the gray suit. A bright pink color washed from Dean’s hairline to his collar, and a hard swallow bobbed his throat. Another awkward stretch of silence lingered far too long before anything happened. 

The crinkle of the paper bag rent the silence like thunder, and all three men startled so violently, I might as well have screamed. Everyone moved all at once; Dean to me where he snatched the bag of food from my hands and tore into it; Sam to his laptop where he furiously typed; and Castiel back to the bathroom, promptly shutting the door behind him.

Once again, too many red flags remained with too few explanations. And that would only grow worse as the weekend continued.


	3. Boots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More awkwardness follows us to the station where we meet Dean’s contact, Detective Andrea Williams.

Uncomfortable silence accompanied us on the ride to the precinct. When Dean had asked Sam to sit in front again, Sam protested. He had taken to riding in the backseat with me over the last year. Why, for a five-minute ride, would it make such a difference who rode shotgun? 

I knew why. But I kept my mouth shut.

After a glare that threatened death, Sam sheepishly slipped into the front seat, and Castiel slid in beside me in the back. Despite the quick drive, Dean frequently cast casual glances in his rearview mirror. I didn’t bother asking after that, either. I’d only get some fib. Just checking his surroundings. Safe driver. Double-checking his outs. The usual.

No, the reason I did not ask him a damn thing was that I knew, without a doubt, he intended to sneak glances at Castiel. And I couldn’t blame him. Castiel admittedly looked dapper in his trim, gray suit.

A block shy of the station, Dean wrenched the mirror down to the floor. He squinted in the mirror as the Impala slowed. And then he looked over the back of the bench seat to scrutinize Castiel’s feet.

“Are… those my boots?” he asked as he turned his attention back to the road and parked the car along the curb.

Castiel exited the car first, then turned to Dean. “They have been sitting in the garage for months. I asked you about them, remember?”

“Yeah, and what did I say?” Dean replied as he rounded the front of the Impala.

Eager to hear the story unfold, I scrambled from the car and raced to catch up. Behind me, Sam slowed from his gallop, a crooked grin on his face as he, too, listened closely.

“That they were yours, but they were uncomfortable, so you were probably going to take them back,” Castiel explained. “I was going to give you—”

Dean held up a hand to silence him. “It’s fine, Cas. Keep ‘em.”

“But you spent—”

“I said you can keep them,” Dean hissed as we neared the building, for our contact stood outside and greeted us at the door. With his typical charm, Dean introduced her to us as one Detective Andrea Williams. Her bubbly greeting, bright smile, and perfectly blonde coiffure belied her towering and imposingly buff frame. And as Dean introduced us to her, the two appeared quite familiar with one another. Once he passed the pleasantries, he wasted no further time and got straight to business.

“So, four missing men, then?”

Detective Williams motioned them into the station with a nod of her head and then pointed to the hall on the lobby’s far side. “We’ll talk in my office.”

Empty interview rooms with open doors drifted past as Detective Williams rounded the corner for her office. As soon as the door shut, Castiel asked, “Is it always this quiet?”

Dean tossed a glare over his shoulder, only to blush again the second his eyes landed on him. It was almost as if he had forgotten; Dean eyed him from head to toe before averting his stare.

Detective Williams cleared her throat as she said, “It is, Agent Deacon.”

“No suspects?” Sam asked.

She shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. And there are actually five men missing now. Another report was filed last night.”

“Same profile?” I asked.

“Six-two, slender build, dark hair, Caucasian. Yes,” Detective Williams described. “In fact, they’re all the same age, too. Twenty-seven, with birthdays only weeks apart.” She flipped through a thin stack of papers on her desk. “But as far as we can tell, they don’t know each other. Different employers, families, friends. It’s… strange.”

Sam pointed to the stack of papers and asked, “Can I make copies? We’ll need to start interviewing folks right away.”

“Absolutely,” she said as she handed the stack over. “Copier’s right around the corner.”

When Sam turned on his heel to leave, Dean continued to question the detective. It was then that I saw an opportunity that I might not find again that weekend. I rounded on the door and slipped through before it closed, quick to follow Sam to the copier.

He spotted me over his shoulder, a subtle double-take that furrowed his brow. “What’s up?”

“Did you…” I paused as we arrived at the copier, and Sam opened it. “What’s going on with Cas?”

From furrowed to arched, Sam’s brow raised near to his hairline. “I have no idea. You’re talking about the suit, right?”

“And the sweatpants yesterday,” I added.

Sam chuckled as he started the copier with a forceful stab of his index finger. “Christ, I forgot about that already.”

“The suit was pretty distracting,” I admitted. “But why? And why does it have Dean all flustered?”

When the first page finished, Sam flipped to the next. “I… that’s a brilliant question.”

I took the copies from the machine as they jumped into the tray. “I’m going to keep an eye on them.”

“Me, too,” Sam said. “Speaking of keeping an eye on things, do you have any thoughts on these missing guys?”

The pages of their profiles flipped under my thumb as I continued to add sheets Sam copied to it. “No. Nothing suggests any sort of thread between them. You know…”

When I trailed off, my thoughts buried in the papers I held, Sam hunched a little closer. “Y/N? You okay?”

I shook my head. “Yeah. I don’t think there’s a case here. I think Dean just wanted to get laid.”

Sam’s grimace paired with his typical eye roll. “I kinda thought that, too. But, just to be safe, we should still interview some folks.”

He handed me the last photocopy as I spoke. “Agreed.”

Before Sam could speak again, Detective Williams’ office opened, and Castiel stepped through first, followed by Dean and the detective. She held her card out to Castiel, and as we approached, handed duplicates to Sam and I.

“Call me the minute you find anything,” she said. “Whoever or whatever it is, we want to handle it.”

More red flags. Castiel ground his jaw as Dean smiled and said, “You got it.”

Detective Williams smiled in return and retreated into her office. With a soft  _ snict, _ the door clicked shut, and Dean turned to head down the hall for the lobby. Castiel followed with slumped shoulders and his head hanging between them. Ahead of me, Sam strode, his face buried in the dossier. Then I took up the rear, lagging, slowed by my completely befuddled thoughts.

And it was only going to get worse.


	4. Undershirts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of investigation, a little bit of a lead, and some personal time between Sam and Y/N.

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

In a rare display of emotion, Sam tossed the dossier onto the dash of the Impala. “Why in the hell did five random dudes just… disappear?”

The Impala rolled around a corner as Dean turned down a residential street outside of Salem proper. “Maybe they were rushes? Initiation gone wrong…”

“They’re twenty-seven. If you’re going back to college at that age, the likelihood of joining a fraternity is very slim,” Sam replied. “I doubt a group would even rush them.” His chin dropped into his right hand, elbow propped on the sill of the passenger door. “None of this makes sense. I don’t even think it’s a case.”

There’s a reason I don’t play poker. Dean saw my reaction clear as day in the rearview mirror. “What’s up, Y/N?”

“I’m not sure anything up our alley is going on here,” I managed. “So I dunno. Vampires? Draining young, healthy guys and discarding the bodies?”

Beside me, Castiel shrugged. “It’s unlikely. There’s no other vampire behavior. These people went missing in the middle of the day.”

Sam whipped around to face him. “What?”

“The last time they were seen was the middle of the day,” Castiel stated. “You read the reports, right? That’s the only common thread I found.”

“Son of a bitch.”

Dean’s exaggerated gasp rent the air as he gawked at Sam, then laughed when he saw Sam’s flat stare. “I can’t believe it, the great Sam Winchester, investigator extraordinaire, missed something.”

“Shut up. It’s not like you noticed either,” Sam retorted.

As hard as I tried to hold back, unbidden laughter shook my shoulders. Between Sam’s irritation—I never wanted to annoy him, but as of late, it seemed relatively easy to get under his skin—Castiel’s impatience, and Dean’s one-track mind, my ribs burned with the effort to keep quiet.

“Hey,” Dean admonished as he slowed the Impala in front of a pale blue house. “I don’t hear you offering up anything besides lame-ass vampires, Ms. Y/N.”

“That’s because,” I started as I opened the door, “I bet you won’t like my best theory much.”

A metallic crunch echoed through the neighborhood as Dean exited the Impala and rounded the front-end. “Oh, I’ll take it,” he continued. “Twenty bucks says you can’t piss me off.”

Halfway up the walk to the house, I rounded on him and said, “I don’t think there’s a case here, and I think Detective Williams’ called you to get laid.”

If anything, Dean was, at most, mildly offended. He knew we weren’t dumb. Maybe he had hoped we wouldn’t figure it out. When the subtle pink blossomed on his cheeks again, he attempted to side-step me for the house, but Sam grasped him by the shoulder and pointed at me.

“Pay the lady.”

That indeed seemed to piss him off. Dean shoved a hand in his pocket, tore out his wallet, and shuffled through it. Then he smacked an old twenty-dollar bill into my hand and grumbled to himself as he stalked past.

“I think there’s actually a case here,” Castiel said over my shoulder.

“How so?”

He gestured to the house directly ahead. “I think we’re about to find out.”

* * *

Too many hours in and out of the car had stiffened my legs and knotted my neck. Not to mention all the sinking sofas, worn-out chairs, and leaned on countertops at five different interviewed homes. But it had all been worth it.

“Groceries.”

Dean kept repeating himself the entire way back to the motel.

“Groceries.”

“Dean, we get it, the last thing they told anyone they were going to do was grocery shopping,” Sam barked. “Why is that so weird?”

When the Impala lumbered over the driveway and into the motel’s parking lot, I decided it was time to play the game. “They all went to the same store. Could have been one of the employees.”

“That’s… a possibility, sure,” Sam started as he exited the car. When I followed, he continued. “But it’s just as likely that they were randomly targeted on the way to the store. Or out of the store.”

“Which store?” Castiel asked at the door.

Dean unlocked it and strode through. “L&M Foods.”

I had made it across the motel room and withdrawn my pajamas from my bag when Sam said, “We should take a look around tonight. When there aren’t so many people around.”

My chin slumped to my chest. “I guess I’ll sleep later.”

Castiel rushed to my side and touched my forehead with no warning. Warmth spread through my entire body, but when he withdrew his hand, I still ached. “You need to rest. We can check in the morning.”

Sam regarded Dean, who shrugged, then turned back to me with a worrying twist to his lips. He closed the space between us, then asked, “You gonna be okay, Y/N?”

The aching muscles in my neck screamed out for relief in the nearness of Sam. But I kept that to myself, despite my staring at his massive hands. “I need to get some sleep.”

Either he could read minds or body language. I’d bet on both. Sam’s soothing touch rubbed my shoulder. Perfectly innocuous, and every bit the caring friend he seemed determined to remain.

Except Dean knew otherwise. At least, I assumed he knew how I felt. When I spotted his crooked smile, I dug as deep as humanly possible for every ounce of resolve to not blush.

“Cas and I can—,” Dean started, but he froze when he turned to Castiel. Again.

Castiel had removed his suit jacket, tie, and button-up before anyone had noticed. “I… thought we weren’t going anywhere until tomorrow morning.”

To that day, I had never seen Dean’s face turn so red so quickly. And then it finally dawned on me. Where I had saved face—albeit a fraction—when caught pining for someone, Dean openly blushed, stared without reservation at the object of his affection.

Look, I am the first to admit that I know next to nothing about flirting. Hell, half the time, all I did was irritate the piss out of Sam. But Dean and Castiel knew fuckall. And at that exact moment, as Dean stared at Castiel in suit pants and an undershirt, everything made sense.

“You know, now that I think about it,” I started far louder than I had intended. Dean startled as he averted his gaze, and Sam snatched his hand from my shoulder. “We should get a look tonight.” Though I tried to fight it, a wide yawn interrupted my statement, and Sam’s touch returned.

“No, Y/N, you need rest,” he insisted. “You two can go tonight yet, right?”

Castiel shrugged back into his shirt. “I don’t need to sleep, but are you—”

“I’m fine!” Dean barked as he grabbed his jacket and rushed out of the motel room.

The dejected sigh from Castiel as he tossed on his suit jacket—he had forgone the tie, left in a pile on the table—followed him to the door.

“Hey, Cas.”

“Yes, Y/N?”

“Give him some time,” I said. “He’ll figure it out.”

He smiled at that. “Thank you.” Before heading through the door, he regarded Sam with an equally fond smile, then left.

When the door closed, I turned to Sam, but he spoke first. “Are you sure you’re gonna be okay?”

The perfect opportunity had presented itself, and I wasn’t about to waste it.

“You know, riding in the backseat of that car all the time really does a number on my back.”

“Oh,” he quipped as he sat on the bed. “Here, sit in front of me. The only spot in the Impala that is remotely comfortable is the driver’s seat.”

Well, shit. Can’t say I didn’t try. I did as he said and sat on the edge of the bed. Deft hands and precise thumbs started in on the knots of my shoulders with expert accuracy. “I guess you would know.”

“My neck is constantly killing me,” he agreed. “I usually take a couple tennis balls in a sock to my shoulders. Hurts like hell, but the relief is worth it.”

A momentary silence filled the space as my mind slowed to nothing and sleep threatened. Before long, I slumped over, and only Sam’s gentle shake woke me. “Sorry. Castiel wasn’t joking. This exhaustion is fucking terrible.”

Sam squeezed my shoulders one more time before motioning towards the bed. “You should change and get some rest. When we get back to the Bunker, I can really take care of these.” He prodded the lingering knot at the base of my neck.

“I could return the favor, too,” I suggested as I stood.

It wasn’t until I turned to him and found a blush on his cheeks, similar to Dean’s, that I understood. “I mean, only if you want, just thought I’d offer, you know, it’s fine if you don’t, I get it, it’s kind of weird—”

“I would enjoy that very much.”

If I hadn’t been so damn tired, I might have made another move. But sleep beckoned—no, demanded—my attention. I offered my best beyond-exhausted smile as I turned for the bathroom and, once there, shut the door.

I didn’t bother locking it. I knew Sam wouldn’t come in unless I explicitly asked. And even then, knowing how I’d burned the wick at both ends for far too long, he would merely drag my dead weight into bed to sleep. And sleep I would. Dear Lord, I never knew the human body could experience such draining exhaustion.

After a quick change of clothes and a brushing of teeth, I left the bathroom and found Sam at the table pouring over dossiers. His brief smile faded the second he returned to the profiles, eager to get to the bottom of the case.

As I curled into bed, I convinced myself that he wanted to get back to the Bunker sooner than I did.


	5. Jeans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fruits of their labor (well, some of their labor) pay off and the group lands a lead on the case. But once they learn what they’re up against, their odds of surviving wane.

“What is this?”

Sam stared at the list Dean had handed to him. “Businesses around the grocery store.”

“A barber, a record store,” Sam read aloud. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I’ll start looking into these places, see if anything jumps out.” He took the list to his laptop and dove right in.

I sat on the edge of the bed across the motel room as I flipped through local television stations. A breakfast burrito threatened to spill out of its wrapping as I bit into it, and I barely saved the renegade chunk of beef with a nearby napkin. “See anything strange last night?”

“Not a peep,” Dean stated. He was about to speak again as Castiel exited the bathroom in a fresh pair of jeans and a plain black t-shirt. Dean’s eyes widened but a fraction, so tiny a change that, before last night, I would have missed it.

But since then, every little quirk before and after confirmed my suspicions. A quick, knowing look passed between Sam and I. Though his focus remained on his computer, he muttered through his smirk, “Must have been boring.”

“Really boring,” I added as I hunched behind my burrito.

Palpable irritation bristled from Dean, and he struggled a moment before retorting. “Nowhere near as boring as I bet this motel room was last night.”

“Oh?” I mused. “So, you met up with Detective Williams then?”

He folded his arms across his chest and grumbled a petulant, “No.

While fully aware that I prodded a sensitive nerve, I couldn’t help myself. “Why not?”

“Because!” he shouted. “Because I didn’t want to! Happy?!”

Nerve finally struck, I dropped the subject. “Alright, I get it. What did you find at the store?”

“It was closed,” Castiel stated as he stepped between Dean and I. “As was everything else.”

“Except the fortune-teller.”

Three heads, mine included, turned to Sam with a collective, “What?”

“The business right next door to the grocer,” he continued as he pointed to the list. “I looked up _Madam Drina’s Visions_. She’s some sort of fortune-teller or psychic.” Silence from our rapt attention spurred Sam onward. “The hours on her website list her open from noon to 2 am. Every day,” he explained. “That’s… unless she’s got two or more people working for her, that’s impossible.”

Dean dragged the container of breakfast potatoes across the table and popped three into his mouth. “Place looked mighty dark last night. How long she been there?”

“Gimme a second,” Sam replied as he clacked away on the keyboard of his laptop. Not a minute later, he said, “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“That’s not a good sign for the fortune teller,” Dean grumbled.

Confusion clouded Sam’s furrowed brow. “Unless this is a Dread Pirate Roberts situation,” he stated, “There’s no way any of this is possible. _Madam Drina’s Visions_ has been in business for two and a half centuries across various locations. She’s only been here a few months. But, look at this.”

Sam spun the laptop to face us and slowly scrolled through a series of images. Like a portal into another time, the oldest photos passed first, dated and worn. Sam continued to work his way through the pictures, each decade well represented in fashion, décor, and medium. But then, out of the corner of my eye, a photo caught my attention as it crawled up the screen. It might as well have slapped my face, for I launched off the end of the bed and pointed as I spoke.

“Stop.”

Sam snatched his hand back from the laptop, and the screen stilled. I reached the table in two quick steps and scrolled back through the images until I found what had struck me. Recognition flashed in Dean’s narrowed stare, and he stood, ever so slowly, to back away from the table. Sam followed, rising as if the laptop itself might attack him were he to move too quickly.

Castiel, on the other hand, leaned in and squinted at the screen. “Is that what I think it is?”

A thick swallow bobbed Dean’s throat. He continued to back away from the computer as he said, “That right there is a very rare image of a partially revealed succubus. How in the hell does this picture even exist?”

“I have no fucking clue,” Sam replied as he, too, continued to inch away. “The photographer absolutely died right after taking that photo.”

“If the son of a bitch was lucky, he died right away…” Dean stated.

Despite my having spotted the picture, I had next to no clue what they were talking about. I raised my hand and said, “Hi, junior hunter here. Care to explain what a succubus is?”

“Sometimes, Y/N, I envy your innocence,” Dean began. “And I’m not poking fun when I say that. Succubi are…”

He paused then, hesitation hitching his breath in his throat. When he glanced at Castiel, his jaw clenched and his teeth ground. I followed that look and found Castiel still staring at the picture on the computer, squinting with his head cocked to the side as if to see it better.

Indeed, the picture was quite the puzzle. Candid. Mid-conversation. Unaware. Relaxed, even. The photographer must have called out to the group hanging out in what looked like a green room. And the medium itself looked like a Polaroid right out of the 80s, well preserved and taken with an expert hand. So innocuous, I couldn’t blame Sam or Dean for missing it at first.

In many fewer words, the image was dull.

Except for the faintest outline of a curling pair of horns protruding from Madam Drina’s head. And in her eyes shimmered the faintest purple glow, easily mistaken for red-eye or other retinal reflection. Further discoloration of her skin might be the Polaroid medium, but the subtle purple hue only showed on her. And the others? Four men, all staring at her, their gazes soft and smiles so big and bright.

“She killed all of them.”

Sam’s muttered thought interrupted my own, and I found him backed nearly to the bathroom. “What? How do you know that?”

“Look at them,” Dean said as he pointed. “She’s got them, hook, line, and sinker. They’re completely in her thrall.”

When I considered them again, understanding sank to the bottom of my stomach. “I’m getting a really gross vibe. What does a succubus do to its… prey?”

A full flush consumed Dean’s face, pursed lips releasing a deep breath. “They eat souls. Suck you dry until you’re nothing but a husk. And if you’re lucky, that’s the first thing they do to you.”

My mouth dried, and I stumbled over my words. “And… what if you’re not lucky?”

Sam spoke when Dean remained silent for too long. “They take every pleasure of the flesh imaginable from you. Over. And over. And over again. They break your mind, your body, your spirit—all of it. The worst of it is, their ultimate power convinces you that you want it. That you cannot live without their touch, their attention, or their... satisfaction.”

Goosebumps raced along my arms as a violent wave of nausea threatened to undo my breakfast. Holy hell. A real, live, literal rape-demon. Never in my life had I felt such righteous anger at another living creature. “We have to kill it.”

“Y/N, I’d love nothing more than to waste a succubus,” Dean growled. “Were it an incubus, there wouldn’t be an issue. I’d go over there right now and put a stake through its heart, and we’d be back on the road before dinner.”

Castiel spoke when Dean finished. “But succubi only target men.”

“Considering that they’re a particular kind of demon that needs to eat souls to survive, they’re damn picky,” Dean spat. “Bigoted bastards. I fucking hate ‘em. I hate ‘em all.”

Though wildly uncomfortable with the entire situation, I knew what I had to do. I had rarely felt such contempt for someone. Some _thing_. God, my skin crawled just thinking about it. Resolved, I spoke.

“I’ll kill it.”

Dean regarded me as if I’d sprouted a second head. “No,” he declared. “No way, we’re not sending you in there alone.”

“Back me up,” I interrupted. “I can distract her, and you take her out.”

“One of us should be bait,” Castiel determined. “I could. I am most likely immune to her powers.”

“Most likely?!” Dean bellowed. “You’re not even sure?! No way. If anyone’s going in there to be bait, it’s me.”

Castiel jumped up from the bed and shouted, a rare sight. “Do you have a death-wish?! Why are you always so willing to sacrifice yourself?!”

“Because it’s the right damn thing to do!” Dean barked.

“Hey!” I shouted, “Calm down! Both of you!” Neither Dean nor Castiel would budge an inch until I demanded, “Now!” Dean turned back first, and while Castiel remained where he stood, his stare dropped to his feet. “Christ, you two need couple’s counseling or something, this is getting ridiculous.”

“What?! We’re not—”

“Dean, it was a joke,” I interrupted. “Look, since none of you are guaranteed to survive as bait for a succubus, I am going in. End of—”

Nothing could have prepared me for the look I found on Sam’s face at that moment. Conflict raged beneath the surface, contorting his too pretty face. All my confidence fled in that instant, abandoning me to freeze in its chilling wake. And in its place, guilt and shame and distrust swelled for a cocktail so potent, the room spun.

“Are you sure, Y/N?” Sam asked.

No. Not anymore. But I heard myself say, “Yes.”

His conflict twisted into pain in his reddening eyes. But he acquiesced, nodding silently and heading for the motel room door. Over his shoulder, he said, “We should get this over with tonight. I’ll start prepping.” With that, he strode through the door, presumably for the Impala.

Dean followed him without a word. Though I knew Castiel yet lingered by my side, I startled when he spoke.

“I trust you, Y/N.” He placed a confident hand on my shoulder. “Whatever happens, we’ll be there to help, should the need arise.”

“Thanks, Cas,” I replied.

“Any time,” he said as he led me to the door. “Let’s give the guys a hand.”

Anything to take my mind off my impending doom. I strode through the door into the mid-morning sun and wondered if the weekend could get any more fucked up.


	6. Plaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The showdown.

Darkness encroached on the parking lot’s dim lamplight, the vast, endless nothing oppressive, suffocating. As we stood behind the Impala, that great void loomed, and yet, a tenuous sense of resolution settled in the pit of my stomach. Stuffed to the gills, Sam’s duffel bag—endearingly coined the Bag of Ouch—thumped into the open trunk.

“Isn’t that… a little overkill?”

“It would be if we’d ever actually fought a succubus before,” Sam said with a resigned sigh.

“You know,” I started as I squinted up at him. “Sometimes, I wonder what is wrong with you.”

He pointed to his head. “Don’t worry. I know there are too many screws loose. I didn’t mean to scare you. I don’t want you going into this with any illusions of grandeur. We have no clue what we’re doing when it comes to these bastards. Books, hunter’s notes, the internet. Sure. But that’s why the bag is stuffed beyond full.”

When I looked from him to the bag and back, he shut the trunk. “So, we just have to try something and hope?”

“Essentially, yes. My bet is on decapitation,” he said. “No matter how fast you heal, you really can’t recover from that.”

“Bronze stake through the heart, Y/N,” Dean interrupted. “You know, if you don’t get a clear shot at…” he motioned to his throat with an execution gesture. “Plus, bronze doubles down on ancient metals. They’re not close enough to vampires or werewolves for silver to work. It’s—”

Castiel exited the motel then, and Dean’s teeth clicked shut mid-thought. Angular shadows played tricks on my eyes until Castiel stepped into the light, and I gasped. Blue, white, and gray plaid enveloped his shoulders, paired perfectly with his black jeans, black t-shirt, and Dean’s ill-fitting boots.

Beside me, Dean turned around, and his brow furrowed. “Is that—”

“No, this I bought myself,” Castiel explained. “I like blue. I think.”

Even in the near darkness, Dean’s cheeks reddened noticeably. “You should. Looks good on you.”

I imagined that, if angels could blush, Castiel would have. “Thank you.”

“Get a room.”

The back of my hand met Sam’s stomach as I scolded him. “Sh! Leave them alone.”

Dean’s eyes rolled so hard he gave Sam a run for his money. “What is it with you two? The man looks good in blue, and he should know that. Nothing even remotely suggestive.” He continued grumbling to himself as he rounded for the driver’s side of the Impala.

“Maybe that was too far,” I suggested as I glared at Sam.

He merely laughed as he turned for the car. “I disagree entirely, but I’ll back off. At least, until after this hunt.”

I turned to follow him, but then realized Castiel stood by himself. “You coming?”

Hand to his chest, he smoothed the plaid as he tugged it straight. “Do you agree?”

“With?” I asked.

“Dean. About blue plaid.”

Stuttered words stumbled from my mouth. Had he not seen the way Dean stared? Blushed? A brisk shake of my head cleared my thoughts. “First off, I think you should wear whatever makes you happy and comfortable. If that’s plaid, great. If not, that’s fine, too. Second, you can only control yourself. That’s something you probably already knew, but for some reason, humans take way too long to learn that. And third, blue looks great on you.”

He smiled then and followed me to the car. “This is much more difficult than I had anticipated.”

A bark of laughter burst from my chest. Before responding, I reached the rear passenger door and popped the handle. “Do you want my advice?”

“I abide by your expert wisdom, Y/N,” Castiel replied.

I clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Talk to him.”

Behind schedule, I allowed Castiel no time to respond and sidled into the backseat of the Impala. Once Castiel seated himself, Dean backed out of the lot, and the Impala roared to life as he laid into the accelerator, heading towards the grocer.

* * *

“I hate this plan.”

Sam situated the bronze stake up the right sleeve of my newly acquired leather jacket. Dissatisfied and yet resigned to the situation, he moved on to the machete holster concealed beneath the jacket. “I really hate this plan.”

“Do you keep saying that to make me feel better or to convince me to bail?” I asked as I shot a nervous glance down the hill. There, sandwiched between the grocery store and a craft store, sat Madam Drina’s Visions, an eerie purple glow emitting from the partially curtained windows.

Sam grunted under his breath. “I think it makes me feel better,” he replied as he shifted the machete on my back. “Practice reaching for the handle. It’s a very weird holster. I hate wearing it.”

In one smooth motion, I reached behind my hip, grasped the handle, and pulled. The blade freed from the scabbard in a sharp ring of steel that sang between the stone buildings surrounding us. “Okay, I’ve never done that before. That was really fucking cool.”

“It sure as hell looked cool,” Sam laughed, “And it makes me feel better. Now, we’ll be right outside, so you give us the signal if you get the slightest hint shit’s going sideways. Please do not hesitate to call.”

I lowered the machete back behind my hip to re-sheath it. A solid clunk thudded through my chest as the hilt met the scabbard, the blade concealed once more. “Looks like I won’t be going in anytime soon.”

Down the hill, no more than a quarter-mile, the distant ring of Madam Drina’s door chimed through the silent night air. That sound caught Sam’s attention, and he turned to the source where we both watched a woman lean into the darkness of night from her shop’s door. She greeted a patron as he approached, and without delay, invited him inside.

Sam turned back to me and said, “We’ll give it an hour. If he doesn’t leave by midnight, we’ll send you in then.”

Before I could say anything else, Dean burst from the car and stomped to the trunk where he planted himself on the bumper. His folded arms and crossed ankles warned me enough, but my boldness won the battle against caution.

“Hey,” I started as I neared the trunk. “You okay?”

Sam slid into the Impala’s seat, and Dean waited for the door to shut before he responded. “No. I’m not.”

Okay, I hadn’t expected that at all. “Alright, that’s refreshing. Keep going. What’s got your goat?”

He scoffed half a laugh at that, opened his mouth to speak, then shut it and shook his head. Though he remained tightly wound, his arms eventually unfolded, and he reached for the hem of his shirt. There he found a familiar threadbare corner, and he continued to worry at it as he had so many times before.

“You ever…”

Silence. Only the chirping of real, honest-to-god crickets broke the still night air. A thousand-mile stare settled in Dean’s gaze, and though the darkness shrouded us both, a familiar conflict roiled beneath the surface of his outward façade.

“Do I ever… what?” I asked. “Catch myself thinking about someone for hours on end? Imagining the things I would say to them under different circumstances? Wondering how they would feel or what they would say in return?”

His eyes snapped to me, glaring from the corner while his head remained still. Another shiver ran up my spine, but the sensation vanished as soon as it had come. Dean looked back up the road, staring straight ahead. The start of a few sentences stuttered on his lips, his tongue. Each time he swallowed his words, he remained silent longer. Until he finally said, “Yes.”

“Which one?”

He plucked a stray string from the hem of his shirt and tossed it out before him. A gentle breeze caught the tuft of frayed cotton and carried it off to the sidewalk where it landed and stilled. Dean, too, sat still as stone for what felt like hours, staring straight ahead at nothing. But the gears churned between his ears, so loud I swore I could hear him thinking. All too familiar, I knew the imaginary situations that played out in his mind, scenario after scenario. Endless torture, that. No good in ruminating, in worrying what response you might get. I wanted to tell him all those things, but how much of a hypocrite would that make me? 

I wavered on the precipice of futility, that precarious knife’s edge where on one side, an infinite future spread as far as the eye could see and on the other stretched complete and utter nothingness. And yet, the longer I balanced on that deadly razor, my untimely end neared. Dean’s predicament had drawn out the worst of my subconscious. As I turned to regard Sam through the car, I swore a solemn oath, if only to myself, that I’d finally come clean. 

I stood then to do what I should have done months ago, but the moment my boots touched the concrete, the bell above Madam Drina’s door twinkled again, and Dean startled. He grabbed my shoulder and turned me to face him as he spoke, an insistent furrow to his brow.

“All of them,” he stated.

So lost in my head, I asked, “All of what?”

“What you said earlier,” he replied. “I’m constantly thinking about him, and I don’t know why. Besides you and Sam, Cas is my best friend, and I… I don’t know what to do.”

When I opened my mouth to reply, Sam exited the driver’s door, and Castiel followed not a beat later from the passenger’s side. I turned back to Dean and lowered my voice. “Just tell him.”

“What?!” he snarled under his breath.

“I’m serious,” I insisted in a thin hiss. “Tell him everything!”

When Sam rounded the end of the car, all rational thought fled. I’d made a promise to myself. And, in a way, to Dean, too. No way I’d go down as some plaster saint spouting hollow words in my final hours. Go big or go home.

Sam caught me. Barely, but that hardly mattered. When I had jumped, I knew I had leaped in faith, not in Sam’s ability to catch me—although I knew his arms were more than capable—but in his equal, mutual, maddening adoration for me. Like the heat of a summer’s noonday sun, his embrace smothered me. I soared too close to that roaring heat, and my plaster wings melted as I planted my lips on his.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you I can’t take my own advice.

“I am sorry, Dean.”

Castiel’s gruff apology ruined the moment. Almost. Sam squeezed me so tight to his chest and returned my kiss twofold despite our lack of privacy. But my eagerness to witness Dean and Castiel’s truth rivaled my endless exultation. I parted from Sam but remained in his arms as I looked over my shoulder.

Dean’s crooked eyebrow lowered as he turned from Sam and I to Castiel. “I know. But thanks,” he said as he clapped him on the shoulder. “Are you two finished?” He turned back to Sam and I. “Can we go kill this son of a bitch succubus and get the fuck out of here?”

Forgotten. For one glorious, blissfully unaware moment, I’d forgotten that a creature as vile as a succubus could exist.

The four of us looked down the hill towards the shop where Madam Drina waved goodbye to her patron as he walked down the block to the east. “That looks like our window,” Dean stated.

Two worlds collided with that simple phrase. The reality I had dreaded all day loomed like the specter of an urban legend. A sudden hyper-awareness seeped into my skin, my bones, my soul. Every hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and gooseflesh spread across my arms. The ceaseless ticks of my watch counted the last beats of my heart as though finite, and I knew too few remained. Like so many grains of sand, time slipped through my fingers no matter how I clung to them.

Still in his arms, I looked up to Sam, but he said nothing. Those three little words balanced on the tip of my tongue. But as my lips parted, Sam stopped me.

“I know. Me, too.”

That would have to do.

A dreaded chill replaced Sam’s embrace as I headed down the street to Madam Drina’s Visions.

* * *

“Hello?”

I’d expected Madam Drina to meet me at the door as she had her previous client. When a few minutes passed with no sign of her, I grasped the handle and swung the door wide. As I spoke, her doorbell’s chime faded, then struck again as the door closed behind me.

Incense suffocated the cramped space. Thick strands of smoke rolled like massive coils of so many snakes, crawling and gliding ever so slowly through the room in an endless drift. Gaudy furniture pressed in from all sides like banks of a river to guide souls to the room’s center. There sat an intimate, circular plinth covered by several ornate silk scarves, and on its center rested a large crystal ball.

Overhead, similar swaths of silk stretched from the corners to the center of the room directly above the plinth. From the center of the ceiling, numerous large crystals hung from delicate silvery chains. Despite the swirling smoke, those crystals remained poised, still as stone. Azure and amethyst and amaranth lights illuminated the walls from floor to ceiling, reflected in glittering crystals and the sizeable transparent ball on the plinth, completing Madam Drina’s incredible soothsaying display.

“Hello?”

Not even a hint of an echo. Slow steps bore me downriver, and I called out once more. “Madam Drina?”

I had done my best to prepare my senses, steel my nerves, and harden my resolve. Few women rivaled Madam Drina’s beauty. But when she entered the room through a thick layer of silk scarves across the room, death breathed its icy breath down my spine, and I shivered from head to toe.

Pale as the moon, Madam Drina glowed in the lamplight. Dark curls of midnight hair hung from her headwrap, and large almond eyes widened when she spotted me. A petite nose ended in a delicate slope upwards, and beneath it stretched plump lips painted so very red to reveal a brilliant smile. She opened her arms, dark linens billowing from her wrists and elbows, and showed a tightly bound dress of sanguine silk, satin, and chiffon. Around her neck wrapped a woven leather choker, and at its center sat a ruby the size of my thumbnail. From that ruby, three delicate leather straps of varying lengths and bearing tiny red stone droplets plunged to her deep neckline and settled just above her admittedly impressive cleavage.

I could hardly take my eyes off her. And not just out of fear for my safety.

“Good evening, my dear,” she cooed, her voice velvety smooth and throaty with a hint of her breath. “I apologize for my tardiness. I had to... powder my nose.”

The first wave of her power rolled through my chest, and the room shimmered in a blurry rush, but the sickening sensation passed in a single breath. When my focus returned, I found Madam Drina glaring daggers at me. But in a blink, her anger disappeared, and she motioned to the table.

“Please, sit. What would you like to know?” She crossed the space and sat in a plush, overstuffed chair on the plinth’s opposite side. The layers of her dress parted as she spread her knees to either side of the pillar and slid her chair closer. “Come, dear. Tell me what you see here,” she beckoned as she pointed at the crystal ball with a black, claw-like fingernail. “I can tell you what it means.” 

A nervous twitch of my hand checked the machete behind my hip. The cold bronze stake up my sleeve needed no such confirmation. As casually and confidently as I could, I strode to the empty chair and sat across from Madam Drina.

The second rush of power caressed my thighs, gentle as a lover’s touch. A heady aroma of oakmoss and elderberry flooded my nose, and once more, death breathed her icy chill down my neck. But again, the moment passed almost as if it had never happened. Disappointment twitched across Madam Drina’s intense gaze, her pale blue eyes flashing in frustration. And just as she had before, that display of emotion vanished, her calm countenance returned.

“You,” she drawled, “are better suited for cards.” A snap of her fingers vanished the crystal ball, clearing the plinth between us. I startled to feign surprise at such blatant use of magic, but I worried she saw through my ruse.

“Place your hand on the table,” she said as she smoothed the fabric. “Right here, my dear.”

Call it prescience, call it a sixth sense, hell, call it a woman’s intuition if that helps. Whatever it was, every fiber of my existence railed against the habit to lay my right hand on the table, and instead, I placed my left in the center with all the confidence I mustered.

Her long nails slipped beneath my palm and lifted my hand from the table. A scant inch from her nose, she examined my skin, fingers, and nails until she turned it over to scrutinize my palm. “Beautiful,” she purred, “so healthy. And strong.”

“You can tell that just by looking at my hand?” I asked.

The corners of her lips twitched, and she traced tantalizing trails along the lines of my palm with the pointed nail of her index finger. “That and much, much more.” She paused, her pale stare locked on mine. “But that is for another night. Cards. The cards will have the most insight for you tonight.”

Fight or flight. An opening squandered surely sealed my fate. Lost in thought, I noticed too late the creep of magic crawling along my arm, and when Madam Drina returned my hand to the covered plinth, death sang her siren’s call to me for the third time. That frigid touch of magic bound my hand to the table, frozen solid as a block of ice. A roiling surge in my stomach threatened to empty it there on the table, instinctual, primal. My final lucid moment chose flight.

As Madam Drina withdrew a deck of tarot cards from her waist wrap, I took my chance. Below the plinth, I slipped my right hand beneath the hem of my coat for my hip. There, the two-way radio’s textured button brushed beneath my fingers as I fumbled for my lifeline. But before I could press the button, Madam Drina held the deck out to me and spoke.

“Cut.”

As though a spun valve had released the pressure on my left hand, sensation returned to my fingers. I reached for the deck and stared Madam Drina directly in the eye. A rookie mistake, one I regretted immediately. Her piercing blue stare bored a hole straight into my soul, and my secrets laid bare. She knew. She saw straight through me, read me like an open book. Most of all, she knew that danger had found her that night. Too risky. I backed down from my radio and returned my right hand to my knee. With the left, I grabbed a large portion of the deck from her hand.

“Bold,” she commented as she placed the cards in her hand atop the cut. “But unsurprising.” The warmth of her touch covered mine on the table, only to seize in a flow of icy magic, chained once more. “I knew you would be an interesting read the moment I saw you.”

With ease, she moved my hand to the edge of the plinth. I tested my invisible restraint to no avail; that magical bond held fast. “Now,” she started, “I want you to think deeply about your being and how it has manifested itself thus far in the universe. Take your time. Connect with yourself. This may feel very new and even uncomfortable.”

To maintain pretenses, I did as she instructed. My gaze fell to the deck of cards where I drifted, unseeing. The room faded into an endless nothing, but within seconds, distant shapes formed in swirling clouds of dark smoke. As I neared them, they focused, solidified, and settled into my best friends. Castiel stood off to the side, his forlorn gaze staring across the nothingness at Dean, who stood beside Sam. And Sam’s appearance faded, opaque and wispy, where tendrils of smoke leached from him. Soon, he disappeared, and, though strange, I understood. I knew, without question, the meaning of that vision.

When Dean and Castiel remained, Dean gazed into the middle distance, and Castiel continued to stare at him.

“Ask your question.”

Madam Drina’s voice interrupted my thought, and in a wild, sliding rush, the room returned to focus around me. Her touch at my left hand, with her nimble fingers drawing delicate circles, elicited a well of sensations that itched beneath the surface, eager for release. But that ache was not alone. Death stalked in the shadows.

“You know what it is you seek, darling. Ask. Ask the universe your question, and the cards will tell you all you need to know.”

I heard myself speak before the thought had even formed in my mind. “How can I help my friend understand the truth?”

Madam Drina breathed in so deep, her chest swelled, and her eyes rolled back as they closed. “Ah, it is a man, no? A man you wish to… know the truth?”

“Yes,” I stated. “He deserves to know.”

“They all do,” she agreed as her gaze drifted to her hand atop mine. “They all should know the truth of a woman’s touch.”

Wait. What? “No, that’s… not—”

“Hush, dear,” she interrupted. “You have asked, and the cosmos will respond.” She lifted the first card from the top of the deck and turned it over. “Oh, how fascinating. You are not one to disappoint!”

A man hung from a tree by his ankle but rose above it against gravity. “The Hanged Man, inverted,” she said. “You are learning a new perspective on love. This man of whom you speak should know this, yes.”

But I knew The Hanged Man had many more meanings. Despite my question, I worried it related more to the situation at hand. I dodged sacrifice every second I lingered in Madam Drina’s presence.

She flipped the second card and hummed a knowing song. “The Seven of Pentacles, upright. You have long put work into this friendship. That is how you weather this storm. It will pay off with romance.”

The urge to contradict her nearly overcame my sensibility. Hard work, perseverance, and patience would see me through my encounter with such an abhorrent creature.

The third card flipped over, and Madam Drina hummed again as if she expected the result. “The Eight of Cups, inverted. You are learning the lessons of fear, sweetheart. Loneliness and loss are hard lessons, undoubtedly.”

Until that moment, I had held absolutely no faith in the power, ability, or knowing of tarot cards. But as I stared down that inverted Eight of Cups, my once unwavering disregard for tarot faltered. I feared not loneliness, but indecision. Inaction. Stagnation. I had to choose a path and commit to it before stalling at the crossroads got me killed.

Madam Drina grasped my left hand in hers and said, “You will see this through to your end, my dear. I know it.” She flipped over the fourth card and beamed with such pride I wondered if I had imagined her sense of danger earlier. “Strength, inverted!” she cried, almost a moan. “You shed your low self-esteem and insecurities, and are born again confident in love!”

No. What I relinquished in her presence was not insecurity, but fear. I stared Madam Drina dead in the eye again. I forced myself to meet her enraptured gaze of pure, unadulterated lust head-on and without fear any longer.

The fifth and final card flipped over with a snap of the cardstock. And that time, she cried out such a lascivious moan, I desperately wished to be anywhere else but in that room with her. “The Queen of Wands, upright,” she sighed. “You move forward with independence, confidence, and openness with your lover!”

In a brilliant flare of icy sorcery, Madam Drina lunged over the plinth and grasped me by the jaw. “You radiate power, sweetling. Do you not feel it?!” she breathed, oakmoss and elderberry filling my nose once more. “You should. You should experience the pleasures of such power. I can give that to you if you want. I can give you everything.”

Courage. The Queen of Wands symbolizes courage and individualism. To survive the encounter, I needed to believe in myself. Weak knees shook as I stood, the last of my willpower draining like water through a sieve. Madam Drina poured every ounce of her power into me, an unrelenting tidal wave. I wanted nothing more than to give in, surrender to her promises, and experience the culmination of that euphoria. And yet, the tiniest of voices, so thin and frail in the recess of my subconscious, forced its way to the fore of my mind and spoke of courage. Of righteous anger. Of life. Of love.

As Madam Drina pressed closer, her visage wavered, the mirage fading away to reveal her true form. Pale, purple skin stretched thin across her angular face, and endless black depths replaced the blue sapphires into which I stared. Long, curved horns smooth as obsidian protruded from her hairline where the skin crackled like broken earth to reveal tiny streams of violent purple energy flowing through her body.

“You will submit,” she ordered, “I own you now.”

Blood rushed past my ears with each furious beat of my heart, drowning out her words. The succubus continued to speak, continued to pour her delusions into my head. But I heard nothing, saw nothing. The last of my strength focused laser-like on the machete, and I reached behind my hip for the handle.

In a ring of metal and a flash of steel, I stripped the machete from its scabbard. The blade arched in a wild bid for her neck, and time stretched far too thin. Each second dragged, and the blade slid slowly, achingly, to its mark. Strike true, I begged. My life depended on it. God, please, let me strike true.

A sharp, earsplitting crack of thunder rang from the blade as it connected with the succubus’ long claws, her fingers against her neck blocking the machete. She smiled then, her long snakelike tongue darting out to lick her lips as she tore the weapon from my hand and tossed it to the floor beside her. “You will be such a pleasure to break.”

The bronze stake slipped from the sleeve of my jacket with a twitch of my wrist. Time raced to catch up, snapping back like a rubber band. I shoved the finely honed point to her chest, my entire body torqueing for all my strength, but in the final inch, the succubus screamed so loud, I collapsed to my knees. She flung me aside, and the stake flew from my hand to roll beneath a thick chest of drawers. I tumbled with it, crashing into the dense oak, and pain lanced like lightning through my entire body. 

She screamed again, another furious screech that echoed impossibly through the shop. Windows rattled in their panes, and my hands snapped to my ears. The succubus stood then, and for the first time, I consumed her entire form. Heeled feet and slender ankles begged the eye up to the perfect curves of her sensuous hips that swayed as she strode to me and straddled my prone body. From the shiny golden gorget at her neck, delicate chains stretched along her pale skin, down her massive breasts, and capped small metal disks over her nipples. More delicate chains crossed along her soft stomach and wide hips, barely covering her sex with a flimsy gauze cloth that draped to the floor. Over her shoulder curled a wicked, seven-foot-long tail protruding from her spine at the top of her long, supple ass.

Lust, incarnate.

“You are inquisitive,” she purred. “I know what you are thinking. I know what they all think when they see my true form for the first time. You wonder.” She leaned over and reached for my throat. Adrenaline surged as I attempted to fight her off, but she pinned me to the floor with no effort at all. “You imagine. You fantasize,” she whispered into my ear. “I can give it all to you, and so much more.”

Her long, lithe fingers wrapped around my throat and gently squeezed. “This,” she started, “is what you crave. What you’ve wanted for years. To know endless pleasure by my hands of mastery. Agree, and I will give it to you. Fight, like you continue to do as you squirm your lithe little body beneath mine, and I will take it from you anyway.”

Darkness pressed in from all sides as my vision narrowed. Her grasp pressed ever so perfectly, and within seconds, I succumbed to the ceaseless nothing.

A thin shattering of glass and a sharp, shrill cry echoed through the emptiness like a distant memory. Light returned, and the room focused as I shook my head, but nowhere near fast enough. The succubus snatched me up from the floor like a child clutching a favored doll. Tiny diamonds of glass tumbled from my hair, my coat, and when she turned me about, I saw Sam and Castiel standing at the front of the shop, guns loaded for bare.

“Hand her over!” Sam barked. “Now!”

“Or what?” the succubus seethed. “You’ll shoot me? You’ll have to shoot her fir—”

“They might.” The thunk of the rifle at the back of the succubus’ head snapped my attention behind her. There, Dean glared at the end of his short barrel and said, “But I won’t.”

Another blinding flash of power roared through the room as everything happened at once. The succubus flung me from her arms, and I soared across the room to crash into Sam. We toppled together to the floor, and not a beat behind me, Dean and his shotgun followed. He rolled as he landed, but barreled into Castiel, who only just caught him.

An infuriating lilt of her humming pleasure caught us all off guard. “You brought men to defend you?” She howled with haunting laughter. “Maybe you are not so bright after all,” she simpered with a wave of her hand.

On pins and needles, I could only watch as Sam, Dean, and even Castiel reached for their heads, and Sam squeezed his eyes shut. But just as I had resisted her magic, so did they. A few shakes of their heads and a breath later, Dean picked up his shotgun, Castiel aimed with his once more, and Sam helped me to my feet. As I stepped back, my heel kicked something hard, larger than the shards of glass strewn about the shop’s entry, but I dared not look down as the succubus advanced on us.

“Oh,” she mused as she took her sensuous rolling steps. “Your friends are strong, too. Stronger than you? Will I break all four of you? Together?”

“Back off, bitch.”

The crack of Dean’s shotgun exploded in the tiny shop, and my ears rang for several seconds before I heard more pealing laughter from the succubus. Rock salt lay scattered on the ground a foot before her as though it had hit an impenetrable wall. “You think you can just shoot me, Dean Winchester?”

Dean balked then, appearing shocked to hear his own name. “No. You don’t know me. Don’t even pretend like you do.”

“Oh, but I do,” she said as she stepped once more. In that second, her skin shimmered and shifted until it transformed into a dark suit, blue tie, and tan trench coat. “I know everything about you.”

Her eyes turned brilliant emerald green as they snapped to Castiel. “And you. The disgraced angel, Castiel, who once tempted the fate of the entire world by becoming God. The things I would love to do to—”

“Shut it,” Sam hissed as he raised his shotgun.

The succubus looked at the rock salt at her feet, then back to Sam. “What makes you think your gun will work after his didn’t?”

“I’m not packin’ rock salt, honey,” he stated. “Now back up.”

“My dear Sam, do not make me…” her voice clipped short as she hesitated, then her coat and suit shifted to match my own outfit. She turned to me, and her clothing twisted into Sam’s burnt orange jacket. “Well, aren’t I a lucky girl?” Her clothing vanished in a shiver befitting a burlesque dancer. “Four pining souls all desperate for pleasure. You’ve come to the right place. I think I’ll start with you.”

When the succubus pointed, Dean choked as though on cue. His shotgun dropped from his hands and clattered to the floor, and though it was within reach, I dared not move. Sam and Castiel raised their rifles to shoot, but a flippant wave of her free hand sent them flying into the opposite wall of the shop. They crashed into the ornate furniture in a hail of wood and metal, then collapsed beneath the rubble. Where Sam had slumped motionless, Castiel remained conscious, but he struggled to do even that.

“Cas, you hold on!” Dean choked. “Y/N, help him!”

With a subtle shift in her pointing hand, Dean rose to the tips of his boots, barely touching the floor. I alone remained standing, but mine was no longer the only life on the line. Once more, I stood at the crossroads and had to commit to a path.

I dropped to the floor for the rifle, and no sooner than my hands graced the stock, it sailed across the room. “Dean goes first,” the succubus declared. “Then once I’m through with him, I’ll break Sam. And then you.” She turned back to Dean. “While your big, dumb men watch.”

“Don’t you touch them!” Dean choked as he clawed at his neck. The tips of his boots scraped the floor where the succubus dangled him. “I’ll fucking kill you if you lay a single finger on any of them!” 

One heeled foot stepped in front of the other as the succubus closed the space between her and Dean. “Your brother was supposed to be my king. Did you know that?” she breathed. “You could be my king, and I’ll serve you however you see fit. I’ll leave her alone. I’ll leave Sam alone. I’ll even leave dear, sweet Castiel alone.”

She looked to Castiel, who stumbled through the rubble to rouse Sam’s motionless body. “Look at him. Bumbling fool,” she hissed. “What do you see in him that you don’t see in me? I can give you so much more.”

Dean tried to choke out another retort, but her invisible grip at his throat tightened. When she reached him, she pressed her entire body against his, and a virulent wave of power roared to life around them, crackling like fire but dark as night. A violently lewd shiver coursed through her, running from shoulder to tail as she moaned, and Dean’s face turned a putrid shade of green I had never seen on a human before. “Aw, you don’t like being choked? Poor thing. You’re missing out. I can teach you to love it.” Her long forked tongue teased at Dean’s jaw, and she moaned again as he jerked his head away from her violently.

In one infinitesimal second, horrors unlike any I had experienced before flashed before my mind’s eye. In the next breath, those terrible visions faded in a haze of red, insatiable bloodlust. No coherent thought penetrated that curtain of rage, that raw, unbridled fury, and I committed for the third and final time that night.

Fast as lightning, I lunged. My machete lay where I had unknowingly kicked it not minutes earlier. In an odd twist of fate, it had come to rest in a place so perfect. I could not have picked it ahead of time, given a chance. In a move that put Neo to shame, I rolled through the wild dive for the machete and sprang to my feet, armed. Distracted so by her prey, the succubus turned too late to defend herself. And I wasn’t about to let her get the last word before I snuffed out the wick that was her pathetic existence.

“Choke on this, you sick son of a bitch.”

Steal sang through the air, harmony to the melody of my frenzied scream, and sliced through her skin, sinew, and bone like a hot knife through butter. A fine black mist of demon blood billowed from the strike, covering my face. As the succubus’s decapitated head and body dropped to the floor in a resounding thud, a thin arc of demon blood lanced across Dean’s chest, and he vomited.

He continued to wretch until Castiel rushed from the heap of broken furniture and wrapped one arm around Dean’s back as the other cupped his forehead. Dean gasped, plunged so suddenly beneath the icy waves of healing. But as quickly as Dean’s nausea had come on, it passed in the wake of Castiel’s touch, and he stood tall once more. When Dean nodded in reassurance, Castiel headed back for Sam as he stirred to life in the rubble.

Black runnels of thick blood ran in rivulets down the blade of my machete. White knuckles yet clutched the hilt, and a moment passed before reality, dancing at the edges of my consciousness, sank in. Those were my knuckles, stiff and shaking under straining muscles. A freak spasm snapped my fingers apart, and the blade thumped to the floor.

“Hey,” Dean started as he neared me. “Keep it together, Y/N. You did what you had to do. Look at me. Focus on me.”

Lingering bouts of rage trickled through my blood and rendered my mind near useless. Dean’s lips moved, but I hardly heard a sound, his voice muted. That suffocating rage dragged me down like a treacherous undertow. I did my best to read his lips. Did what you had to. Look. Focus. He pointed two fingers at me, at my eyes, then at himself.

I only noticed Castiel had returned with Sam in tow after Dean had turned to ensure they were alright. A short, muted conversation passed between them, but when Sam spotted me, he closed the remaining space between us and asked, “Do you want to leave?”

The silence shattered, and I heard his voice clear as a bell. But with that clarity came understanding. My stare had unwittingly fallen on the lifeless body, once virile and full of limitless power, sprawled on the floor, her head a few feet away. Even in death, the overt lust of the succubus imposed, branding my mind with an indelible memory I begged to forget.

And then she was gone, blocked by Sam’s broad shoulders and towering frame. “Cas and Dean can handle the body,” he said as he reached for me. I recoiled, an unbidden reaction that surprised even myself. A pained frown I never wished to see again knotted Sam’s brow. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m sorry you went through this alone. It was a terrible plan—”

He choked on his words as I lunged into his arms again, and he remained quiet as he held me. In that moment of silence, I wanted nothing more than to scream, to take out every ounce of my furious hatred for that abomination on her corpse. But the longer I breathed in Sam’s embrace—free of any oakmoss or elderberry, thank Christ—that righteous rage subsided.

“Jesus. No wonder men just fall into their laps,” Dean commented.

I looked past Sam to find Dean and Castiel looming over the body of the succubus.

“I never understood why God created humans to be so…” Castiel paused as he neared the head. “So…”

“Simple?” Dean asked. “So easily fooled? So… basic?”

Castiel nodded. “Yes.”

Dean managed a chuckle at that. “I wish I knew, too.” He paused as he stared at her for one lingering moment. “I hate everything about this. Let’s torch the body outside of town and get the hell out of here.” He tossed a heavy burlap bag at Castiel.

“Why do you hate them so much?” Castiel asked as he caught the bag.

“Because,” Dean grunted, “it’s not fun if it’s not consensual. And if there’s one thing a succubus gets off on most, it’s an extreme lack of consent. And that is fucking gross.”

As Sam led me to the shop’s front door, I glimpsed the tiniest reassured smile on Castiel’s face. And then I understood.

The tarot cards had been right all along.


	7. Long Jacket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, back at the Bunker...

_ Bacon _ .

Roused from what felt like a century of sleep, my stomach roared, beyond hungry. Upon returning to the Bunker after twelve rounds with a succubus, I hardly remembered taking a shower and promptly passing out in the middle of the day. But I had done just that and slept until the next morning.

And yet, I lingered in bed. Sore muscles protested every minuscule shift, injuries cried out in agony if I merely brushed them, and trauma prodded at the mental barriers built to keep the madness at bay. I drifted in that liminal space between asleep and awake, lost in an endless sea of doubt.

I had nearly failed. And not only myself, but the three people I cared most deeply about. They had risked their lives to save me in my moment of weakness. Why had I struggled so severely that I had courted death during the entire encounter?

“What?!”

Castiel’s dumbfounded question echoed down the hall and through my door. After that, I laid wide awake, staring at the ceiling and hoping to hear more. But only a low baritone rambled on, too quiet to determine the words. Castiel interjected again with another astonished remark, but not clear enough to discern.

After several minutes of similar conversation passed, my curiosity won out. I pushed through the pain, rolled out of bed, and tossed on a sweatshirt and sweatpants over my minimal pajamas. In the hallway, the discussion— _ argument _ —grew louder.

“But that doesn’t even make any sense!” Dean declared.

“Most things I do rarely make sense to you, Dean,” Castiel retorted. “And I’m not surprised that, once again, I have managed to—”

The curt clip of Castiel’s thought spurred me to a sprint. I feared that Dean had sucker-punched Castiel in a fit of rage again. But when I rounded the corner for the kitchen door, I leaped over the threshold and slid to a halt.

Bacon sizzled in the pan on the stove, hissing and popping pleasantly. But what stopped me dead in my tracks was not the unattended bacon. Before the stove, Dean stood in his robe and apron, and Castiel stood directly in front of him in his typical suit and trench coat, their bodies flush.

Dean had apparently grasped Castiel by his head and, in an effort to shut him up, kissed him.

“Hey, I hope you used the turkey bacon this time, I didn’t spend—”

I reached up to cover Sam’s mouth as he rounded the corner behind me. Beneath my fingers, his jaw dropped as he spotted Dean and Castiel across the kitchen, lips locked and clamoring for more.

“Do they know you’re—”

“Sam, do not ruin this for me.”

At that, Sam quieted and allowed me my moment of zen. He kissed my cheek and whispered he would be in his room when I finished watching my soap opera. He hoped I’d spend some time with him that afternoon, wished me well, then left me to my devices.

A fleeting moment of worry lasted but a few more seconds. A tiny part of me felt a little intrusive, but I hoped that, after all the conversations I’d had with Dean and Castiel, they would not mind indulging me just once. So I lingered there by the doorway as they shared their first kiss, their first tender touches, their first sighs and moans, and breathless gasps. Sam would need to thank them later.

When they parted, Dean stated, “That’s the only time you’re going to see that.”

“I’m well aware,” I replied.

“Good,” he retorted. “Breakfast?”

I strode to the table and sat on the bench. “What doesn’t make any sense?”

Dean froze halfway to the table with the plate of still sizzling bacon. “His clothes.”

Nothing out of the ordinary stood out about Castiel’s suit or trench coat. “I’m sorry, what did I miss?”

“I tried to explain why I’d worn different clothes last weekend in Salem,” Castiel stated as he sat across from me.

“It’s just…” Dean started, “How was I supposed to know what you meant?”

I raised my hand and said, “Hi, mediocre psychologist here. Maybe you knew what it meant, but you were scared to admit that. Not just to yourself, but to the rest of us as well?”

Dean scowled at the plate of bacon, but that glower softened, replaced by a small smile. He regarded me first, then Castiel, and said, “I love you.”

Unable to resist, I sighed, “Aw, that’s so sweet! Look, you’re blushing—”

“Alright, that’s it. Here’s your bacon,” Dean said as he dumped a pile of bacon on my plate. He stood then and pointed to his plate. “This is my— _ our  _ bacon. C’mon, Cas.”

Castiel rose from the table and asked, “Where are we going?”

“To my— _ our _ room!” Dean declared as he strode through the kitchen.

A broad grin I’d never seen on Castiel spread across his lips. He followed Dean from the kitchen as he asked, “Why?!”

“To get some peace and fucking quiet!”

I popped a bacon chunk in my mouth before Castiel leaned back into the kitchen and said, “Hey, Y/N?”

A quick swig of coffee washed down my food. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Another piece of bacon found its way to my mouth.

“Love you, too, Cas.”


End file.
